Contemporary manufacturing of lightweight components with high mechanical strength usually employs carbon fiber-reinforced plastics, such as CFRP. For efficient production of CFRP components with complex geometries, the so-called AFP method (automated fiber placement method), among others, is used in this context. Here the narrow tapes of carbon fibers are deposited by a laying head successively side by side and one above the other on a support and fixed in a suitable manner. At the end of the generally fully automatic laying process the reinforcing fiber structure produced in this way is preferably infiltrated with a curable plastic and cured. Alternatively, tapes of carbon fibers with a pre-impregnated curable plastic (so-called prepregs) may also be deposited fully automatically by the laying head on a support, such that the fixing of the position of the dry carbon fiber tapes and their subsequent infiltration with the curable plastic can be omitted.
For reasons of quality assurance an optical detector system arranged at the laying head is employed which performs non-contact detection of possible laying errors or verifies the compliance with specified requirements. Typical laying errors or quality characteristics, which are to be identified, are, for example, gaps between the CFRP ribbons, overlappings, contorsions, breaks, frayings, impurities, so-called fuzzballs, splicing zones, sections made too early or too late or missing CFRP ribbons.